Freeciv is an open source multiplayer strategy game, released under the GNU General Public License. The Alpha Centauri Porting Project aims to incorporate features from Firaxis Games' Sid Meier's Alpha CentauriTM.

This is a project to incorporate features from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri into the Freeciv code-base. FreecivAC is not
a game based on Freeciv, nor is it a fork of the Freeciv code. It is simply
a collection of improvements and generalisations to the Freeciv source code
to enable a SMAC mode (in the default mode it should be indistinguishable
from standard Freeciv).

We need help! If you wish to volunteer for anything, subscribe to
the mailing list and let us know what you would
like to do.

We currently require people to take responisibility for the following aspects:

More appropriate in-game graphics.

Psi combat.

Specialist civilian types (e.g. Librarians, Transcendi).

Drone riots (more specifically, nerve stapling).

Governors.

Alien artifacts.

Teaching the AI how to deal with the new generalised rules.

Secret Projects.

Probe teams.

Keeping the freeciv clients (other than the GTK+ client)
compatible.

Anything else you think we might need...

Already under active development is the code needed for native life-forms,
the AC tech tree, social engineering, compound unit types, AC terrain
improvements, water bases, generalised improvements and faction borders.
These portions are in various stages of completeness.

All the current developers use Linux variants on x86 and Alpha platforms which are therefore semi-officially supported. We are eager to encourage uses of other platforms (notably Solaris and BeOS) to test out this code and let us know whether it works, or fix it and provide the patches.

We would like to see a FreecivAC metaserver, but perhaps the FreecivAC code is a bit too young.

FreecivAC is still under heavy development, and certainly far from bug free.
At the present time, the only bugs we are really interested in are those which
cause crashes. If the stable distribution crashes, then we have missed
something. If you find such a bug, please use the bug
tracking system to report it. Be sure to include details of your system, the
version of FreecivAC that you are using and instructions for reproducing the
crash.

Distribution

Freeciv and this derivative are distributed under the GNU General Public License.

The current FreecivAC code is available by CVS. We wouldn't ever guarantee that this code will work correctly, but all the newly added features will be present. To download, follow the commands below:-

Log in to CVS:-cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.freecivac.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/freecivac
login &nbsp (when prompted for a password, just press the Enter key)

If, on the other hand, you already have checked out the FreecivAC code,
the following command (from within the earlier-created freecivac
directory) should be sufficient to get an updated copy:-

cvs -z3 update -dP

Alternatively, FreecivAC is available as a set of patches to Freeciv itself.
These patches are made periodically against the Freeciv CVS tree, but should
also apply without too much modification to later CVS snapshots, available
from the Freeciv web site. Note that the patches should work either when
applied singly, or all together.

FreecivAC CVS is generally fairly similar
or identical to Freeciv CVS plus the most recent set of patches.

The most recent set of patches, below, was made against Freeciv CVS as
recently as July 24th, 2003.

Generalised improvements code is currently (July 24th, 2003) being
considered for inclusion into Freeciv proper; to aid in the review process
the main patch has been split into a collection of smaller patches. In order
for them to apply properly, they should be applied in the same order as
listed here. (Patches that have been submitted to the Freeciv bug tracking
system are listed with their PR numbers.)

N.B. As this collection of patches is generally more up to date than
the complete impr-gen patch, above, you can download a convenience Perl
script to apply the lot of them in order here.
(You'll need to download this script again, or edit it manually, whenever
any of the patches change.)

Preserves the effects of buildings with the "survives" field set, even
after the buildings are destroyed (e.g. Apollo, Manhattan). N.B. Incomplete:
the server can recover these effects from a savegame, but the client only
gets partial information.

Generalises the existing unit class code so that units can be members of
multiple classes. A "class" includes the unit movetype and flags, plus
user-specified types. Unit types can now use impr-gen effects; thus the old
Pikemen/Horse/AEGIS flags, plus the "some governments can build veteran
Diplomats" behaviour, are replaced by effects specified in units.ruleset.
Finally, initial support is added for impr-gen effects of governments.

Adds an "outside" flag to impr-gen effects. This changes the behaviour
of some effects; if outside is 0, they affect units within cities only,
while if 1, they affect units in the field too. This is also used to change
the behaviour of the Science and Tax bonus effects. (Fixes the previously
erroneous behaviour of the Great Wall, which increased the defence strength
of units in the field, rather than just those in cities.)